


War is Over

by Hawkingjay



Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dead Parents, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Family Issues, Neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2451629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkingjay/pseuds/Hawkingjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt I got on tumblr asking about how JD became convinced life is war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War is Over

**Author's Note:**

> This was a tough one to write and it got out of hand, as you can tell, since it is over 3k.  
> It's not in chronological order because I'm a creative writing major and I'm contractually obligated to write something not in chronological order at least once a year.

_i._

_"J.D., how did your mom die?"_

_J.D. didn’t expect the question._

_"You really want to know?"_

_"Yeah," Veronica said, her face set. He sighed._

_"My dad said it was an accident," he said, "but she knew what she was doing"_

The church was empty. Not because people didn’t miss Sally Dean, but because they were so far from anything that could be considered home. So there were a few people from around town who came to be polite, Big Bud Dean, and, of course, ten-year-old Jason. He was trying to hold back tears, trying to put on a brave face. “It’s sad,” his dad told him, “but it was an accident. Accidents happen.”He knew it wasn’t an accident, not when she waved at him from the window with tears streaming down her face seconds before the building blew up. He’d been brushed off every time he tried to talk about it. Ten year olds don’t understand much, and he’d just lost his mother, poor thing.

After seeing the empty casket in the church, though, he said something to his father in the parking lot.

"Did mommy die because she didn’t love me?" He asked.

"Oh, Jesus, not this again," Big Bud muttered, before turning to Jason and saying, "Look, your mom’s death was an accident, okay? I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that. It doesn’t mean she didn’t love you, or whatever other bullshit ideas are floating around in your head."

"But it wasn’t an accident!" Jason said, "she waved at me. She had to know what was going to happen."

"Listen, your mom died in an accident," Big Bud said, almost shouting at his ten-year-old son, "and even if she didn’t she was fucking psycho, so it has nothing to do with you."

Somehow, that only made Jason feel worse, but he didn’t say anything. Not when his dad loaded him into the car to go home, not when his dad told him they were moving again, not as he packed his things, not as they left most of his mother’s belongings behind.

_ii._

_"Oh my God!" Veronica screamed, staring at the corpse of Heather Chandler in front of her "Call 9-1-1!"_

_"It’s a little late for that," J.D. muttered. His hands were in the pockets of his trenchcoat as he watched Veronica scream and hyperventilate._

_"Oh my God! I just killed my best friend!"_

_"And your worst enemy"_

_"Same difference!" She hissed at him, she turned back to Heather’s dead body, "The police are going to think I did this on purpose! They’ll have to send my S.A.T. scores to San Quentin!"_

_"Maybe not," J.D. said, eyeing the bookshelf before finding what he was looking for, "Oh look! She was reading_ The Bell Jar _!”_

The first time it happened, it was an honest mistake. He didn’t mean to kill Kim- why would he? Sure, she was rude, and had been incredibly mean to him since he first moved to Ann Arbor, but he didn’t want to kill her. Still, intent didn’t matter. Now he was a fourteen-year-old with a body count. He started panicking, his mind going into overdrive. He didn’t mean to do it, but he couldn’t explain that to the police. He thought of some way to get out of this, and that’s when he remembered it. Kim was yammering on about  _Romeo and Juliet_  a few days ago, and got snide with him when he pointed out that it wasn’t exactly an ideal love story.

What if she wanted to be like Juliet?

I mean, it was plausible that Kim would kill herself because she couldn’t be with the love of her life, right? All J.D. had to do was make a note in what looked enough like her handwriting. If he had learned one thing from his dad, it was that most problems were avoided when the cops didn’t suspect foul play.

It wasn’t the best, but that could be said about a lot of things in his life.

 _iii_.

_"It was just like Kansas" Big Bud said, "Remember Kansas? ‘Save the Memorial Oak Soceity.’ Showed those tree humpers. 30 pounds of C4 explosives along the trunk. Kaboom. It was-"_

_"Arraigned but acquitted" J.D. said, finishing the story his dad always told, "Damn Kansas"._

“Hey, Pop,” Big Bud said in the form of banter that had become standard for the two since J.D.’s mom died two years before, “Can I go watch you blow up that oak tree?”

"Hm, that sounds dangerous, son. I’m not sure it’s a good idea," J.D. responded, not looking up from the math homework he was working on.

"Aw, come on, pop," Big Bud said, "don’t be a square."

"Sorry, son, I’m not changing my mind," J.D. said. Big Bud didn’t respond, instead just leaving the room.

A few days later, there was a knock at the door while they were packing up their stuff. “Police. Open up.” They heard through the door.

"Shit," Big Bud muttered, heading towards the door. He opened it.

"Mr. Dean, you’re under arrest," the officer said. J.D. watched as his dad was arrested. He spent the night with the neighbors, and went to Big Bud’s arraignment the next day. He didn’t understand what any of the charges filed against his father were. Big Bud posted bail, and went to talk to his lawyer. The second hearing came with big news.

"Mr. Dean, we found that there was not enough significant evidence to try you. You’re free to go."

This led to an interesting conversation on the way back.

"How come they let you go?" J.D. asked.

"Because they couldn’t prove that I did it," Big Bud said with a shit-eating grin as he loaded the last of their possessions into the car. They had had more than enough of the suburbs of Topeka with their stupid fucking oak trees.

"But you did."

"They can’t prove it, though," he said, narrowing his eyes at J.D. "so you wouldn’t tell them, right?"

"Right."

 _iv_.

_"There’s been an absence of girls climbing through my bedroom window lately," J.D. said, leaning against Veronica’s locker. She sighed, before glaring at him._

_"Yeah, well, take a hint."_

_"Hey, I get it, you’re mad," he said. She stepped away from him._

_"No, you don’t ‘get it’." Veronica said, “‘Ich lüge bullets?’ you lied to me."_

_“You were lying to yourself!” He said, taking a step towards her, “you wanted them dead just as much as I did!”_

_"Did not!" She said, offended._

_"Did, too!" he said. It started off a chain of "did not!" "did too!" before he stopped it._

_"Did they make you cry?" he asked. Veronica looked down and sighed._

_"Yes,"_

_"Can they make you cry now?"_

_"No, but you can," she said, throwing him her nastiest glare._

_"Just wait ‘til you see the good that comes from this," he said, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. She pushed him away._

_"No good could possibly come of this."_

_"Call me an optimist," J.D. said simply._

The police didn’t suspect any foul play in Kim’s death. The note with poorly constructed metaphors paired with the copy of  _Romeo and Juliet_ in her hand convinced them that it was a suicide.

Which meant the classmates of J.D.’s second high school were talking about how Kim had killed herself, rehashing gritty details and accidentally surrounding him with reminders of his crime.

As the days passed, though, J.D. noticed something. There was less shoving, less shouting. People seemed to get along better, somehow. It was as if Kim’s death had reminded them that life is too short to be a dick. It was an unexpected, yet welcome, transformation, and it made J.D. think that high school wouldn’t be as bad as he had expected.

Of course, reality came crashing in six weeks later, and they were back on the road to another city and another high school.

 _v_.

_"Gee, pop, ever heard of knocking?" Big Bud said, walking into the room while J.D. and Veronica were kissing, "I was playing grab-ass with my girlfriend"_

_"You know the rules, son," J.D. said, as he and Veronica broke apart, "the bedroom door stays open when company’s over." They pointed at each other, indicating that they were breaking away from their usual pattern of banter._

_"So the judge told those hippies to slurp shit and die!" Big Bud said gleefully, "It was wonderful. I lined the upper floors with thermals and put a Norwegian in the boiler room… Kaboom!" he grinned and held up the VHS in his hand. "I got the whole thing on tape. I’m gonna need my drawstring pants for this."_

_It didn’t take long for Veronica to understand what he meant, and when the look of disgust appeared on her face, J.D. decided that enough was enough. He pulled his gun out of his trench coat and shot through the wall, breaking the TV._

_"God dammit! No firearms in the house!" Big Bud shouted from the other room._

Jason was disgusted by how quickly his dad was able to go back to normal, like nothing had happened.

Like he wasn’t to blame for his mother’s death.

Of course, Jason had never liked it, but his mom had always managed to make him feel better about it. Now she was gone, and the explosions always managed to make him feel more miserable than they already did. If he was lucky, they would be scheduled for while he was in school. If not, his dad dragged him along, proud of his work. It went on like that for years, going from one town to the next. The only thing that had really changed was that the illusion of normality had faded from the Dean family. J.D.'s mom had always made sure he wasn't just eating sugary cereal all the time, but his dad didn't seem to care as much about his diet.

            Of course, he’d grown out of a junk food based diet by thirteen, trying and failing at cooking multiple times. He eventually figured out how to make pasta without fucking up the kitchen. Still, all that changed was now he was eating spaghetti in front of the TV instead of lucky charms.

 _vi_. 

_“You’re useless,” Veronica said to Ms. Flemming, her eyes narrowed. She then turned to the audience of students watching everything transpire, “and you’re all idiots!”_

_“Veronica, you should sit down,” J.D. said, feeling nervous for the first time since he got to Sherwood, Ohio. Veronica was the only loose end in an otherwise perfect plan. He knew he could trust her, but this little outburst made him doubt that._

_“Heather Chandler was a monster, just like Kurt and Ram, **and they didn’t kill themselves. I killed them!”** she shouted. The auditorium went quiet, and it dawned on Veronica what she had said, “so, what do you all think of that.” It was quiet for a few more seconds before there was a giant outburst of laughter._

_“Some people will say anything if they think it’ll make them popular!” Heather Duke said in between laughs. For a second, J.D. felt relieved. Then he saw Veronica running off. He no longer knew what she was doing, and it brought back the panic._

_“Veronica!” J.D. shouted, trying to catch up with her._

            He had been surprised to see her at the 7-11. Even more surprised when they got into a conversation about their lives. He learned she was Veronica Sawyer, a girl with a bright future and terrible taste in friends.

            He wasn’t surprised when Heather Chandler yanked her out of the 7-11, angrily insisting that they motor. He shrugged it off, figuring he’d get to talk to her later. He paid for his slurpee and went home.

            “Hey, pop, let me tell you about the fight I got into today,” Big Bud said, noticing the speckles of Kurt and Ram’s blood that were on his shirt.

            “Son, you know we don’t condone violence,” he said with a sigh, because that could not be less true about the Dean household.

            “Ah, pop, live a little!” he said with a laugh. J.D. just ignored him and went upstairs. He pulled out the book he was reading earlier. He glanced at the page, confused. No wonder, since he wasn’t really paying attention to the book at that point, but instead to the color-coded demons that were trying to crush an unpopular girl, and how it related to the Baudelaire quote his mother used to reference, the one he’d repeated to Veronica. He flipped back a few pages, and resumed reading, taking a few sips from his slurpee every now and then. Even after he finished his slurpee, he still kept reading, his mind occasionally drifting to the cute brunette from Westerberg. After a few hours, J.D. got tired, and went to sleep. He was ready to call it a nigh, considering how exhausting his day had been.

            Which is why he felt more disappointed than anything when he heard his window open. Although that disappointment disappeared quickly when he saw who the intruder was.

            “Veronica?” He said, frowning, what are you doing in my room?  
            “Shhhhhhh,” she said, her arms flailing wildly. Something was up, but he wasn’t going to complain.

 _vii_.

_“Why are you carrying a gun?!” Veronica asked, still visibly shocked by the gunshot that had gone off. J.D. rolled her eyes. He knew she still didn’t really understand how the world worked, but she still didn’t have to be so dramatic._

_“It pissed off my dad,” he said, “it was funny.”_

_“No,” she said, looking at him sternly, “none of this is funny. You’re carrying around a loaded weapon.”_

_“It’s a dangerous world,” he said._

_“Yeah, because of you.”_

_“Veronica-“_

_“No, J.D. we’re done,” she said, “You don’t know the difference between right and wrong.”_

_“Veronica, I love you!” He said, holding his arm out in front of him, she stopped, and he realized that he still had the gun in his hand and was pointing it right at her. He put the arm holding the gun to his side, and held out his other hand towards her, wordlessly asking for her to come back to him. She shook her head._

_“Goodbye, J.D.”_

            His fists hit the wall, over, and over, and over again. He knew she wasn’t going to break up with him. She hadn’t broken up with him earlier, and she wouldn’t do it now. Still, the threat from the funeral lingered in the air.

            “Hey, Pop!” Big Bud said from a few rooms over, “I’m sorry I’m causing so much noise!”

            “Well, son, I know the past few weeks have been difficult for you,” he said, punching the wall a few more times.

            “Difficult or not, I know that I shouldn’t cause such a fucking racket!” Big Bud shouted. J.D. slumped against the wall. He tried to get her mind off of her, but he couldn’t help it. Veronica was one of the best things about Sherwood, and he could feel her pulling away.

            Maybe she was right. Maybe they should stop killing people.

 

            No. He’d seen the good it had done. He just needed to wait, and she would see it, too.

 _viii_.

            _“Hiding in the closet?” J.D. said, indignant, “come on, open the door!”_

_“No,” he heard Veronica say from behind the door, “I’ll scream and my parents will call the police!” He just grinned._

_“All is forgiven, baby! Come on out, get dressed, you’re my date to the pep rally tonight.”_

_“What?” Veronica asked, confused, but still staying in her closet, “why?”_

_“Well, our classmates thought they were signing a petition,” he said, he tore off the fake body of the petition, “you should see what they really signed!”_

            The second time J.D. killed someone, it was on purpose. Sophomore year of high school hadn’t been good to him as it stood, but his latest high school would make Dante himself redefine hell.

            It wasn’t just the way he got shoved into lockers every day without fail, it was also the indifference everyone around him seemed to feel. No one seemed to care what happened to their peers.

            The idea played around in J.D.’s head for a while, and he always felt guilty, but he couldn’t shake it. Of course, the top of the high school hierarchy was the worst. It always was. It was three weeks in that he started forming a concrete plan. Every war had its casualties; he just wanted to make his effective.

            So J.D. tried to look as sad and surprised as he could when he found out that three of his classmates had overdosed at a party.

 _ix_.

_“What the fuck have you done?!” Veronica shouted. It was understandable that she was unsettled, considering she had just watched JD kill two people. Maybe telling her they were ich lüge bullets wasn’t necessarily the best plan to get her to go along with it._

_“I worship you,” he said, trying to console her, even though the amount of trauma she was showing indicated that probably wouldn’t work, “I’d trade my life for yours. We’ll make them disappear. We’ll raise our city here.”_

_The words didn’t bring about the same reaction that they had brought earlier that day. There was still a look of sheer horror on Veronica’s face. He wrapped his arms around her, a gesture that probably seemed more constraining than comforting, but at this point, he didn’t know what to do._

_“Our love is God,” he said to her. That didn’t have the effect that he wanted it to have, because she was screaming and crying, and repeating the words bitterly._

_“Our love is God.”_

            Jason recognized his parents’ face when he got home from school. They were expressions they seemed to be wearing a lot lately. They made distinct faces when they were trying to hide the fact that they were fighting, thinking that Jason wouldn’t recognize it. Of course, the ten year old wasn’t the best at reading other people, but his parents weren’t great at hiding their problems, either.

            “How was school, honey?” His mom asked. Jason just shrugged.

            “Good.”

            “Do you have any homework?”

            “No,” he said, “I’m going to go to my room.” His mother nodded silently in assent, glaring at his father when she thought he couldn’t see. Once he was upstairs, he could hear them arguing.

            “And now we’re in fucking Texas! The national capital of assholes!” She shouted.

            “Sally, it’s work. We’ll be gone in a few weeks.”

            “I can’t stay a few weeks in this hellhole,” she said, “even if I could, I don’t think I’d be able to survive the next one, or the one after that.”

            “Sally give these people a chance and stop being an uptight bitch!” Big Bud shouted. Something was off about the way he was saying the words, and J.D. would later recognize it as a telltale sign that Big Bud was drunk.

            “No,” Sally said, ice lining her voice, “I don’t want to help you inflict any more damage.”

            “Fuck, you’re so overdramatic,” Big Bud said, “it’s not damage if people don’t want it.”

            “Except they do, and you just don’t give a shit.”

            “Why should I?”

            “Because maybe those people are worth listening to,” Sally said. Jason heard his mother’s footsteps through the kitchen then he heard her go out the door. It wasn’t the first time she had stormed out of the house, but it was the last.

_x._

            The boiler room was hotter than J.D. had expected. That didn’t matter, though, because it was going to get a lot hotter when his bomb detonated. This was the only way he could think of to avenge Veronica. Of course, she hung herself, but J.D. insisted it was because of the assholes around her, who tricked her into thinking that Westerberg wasn’t infected with terrible people. She was the only good in the school, and she was dead.

            _“Step away from the bomb” he heard from behind him, in a voice that could only belong to one person. J.D. turned around to see no other than Veronica Sawyer, holding up a goddamn croquet mallet, as if that could somehow protect her from what was about to go down. He couldn’t contain the laugh coming out of his mouth._

_“And here I thought you’d lost your taste for faking suicides!” he said, impressed. While he believed that she should be dead for all she’d done to him, he had to give credit where credit was due. She stood, resolute, and he spoke again, “oh, and this little thing? I’d hardly call this a bomb. This is just to trigger the packs of thermals upstairs in the gym. Those are bombs. People will see the ashes of Westerberg High School and think: ‘now there’s a school that self destructed not because society didn’t care, but because that school was society.’” He pulled out his gun and pointed it at her. He probably wasn’t going to shoot, but he didn’t want to have her ruining his plans, “you know the only place Heathers and Marthas can get along? In heaven.”_

_She walked towards him, even though she was unarmed (aside from the croquet mallet, but he didn’t count that)._

_“I wish your mom had been a little stronger,” she said quietly, and then she started to list all of the what-ifs that had been running through his head, “I wish we’d met before they convinced you life is war. I wish you’d come with me.” She said, and for a second he considered her offer. They could be seventeen._

_No. He’d come too far for that._

“I wish I had more TNT!” He shouted, almost defiant. He’d made his choices, and she’d made hers. That’s the way their stories went.


End file.
